She gazed reproachfully at Connie who, once again, was overcome by that complex emotion of anger, revulsion and affection her sister invariably engendered in her at the same time. Somehow she always managed to turn the tables to her own advantage.
“Agnes,” she said trying hard to keep her voice under control, “the reason I am here is not to see Carson as you unfairly suggest – I have no interest in him and I’m sure he has none in me – but to offer you assistance.” Taking a deep breath she sat down again next to her and looked into those rather mean, calculating eyes which always seemed to be assessing someone’s worth or truthfulness. This being the case it was strange, as well as a pity, she hadn’t been more astute about the husband she had not long ago married.
“Go on,” Agnes said encouragingly as if her inspection of Connie’s face was complete.
“I am fortunate, as you say, in having sufficient funds to do what I want in life. I know that when our father died you had disappeared and no one knew where you had gone ...” She paused and looked at Agnes who sat up stiffly.
“I had my reasons.”
“I’m sure you had. But whatever they were I feel convinced he would have divided his fortune between us, because he was a good and generous man and his other children were provided for. I have come from Venice where I have a home to see what I can do for you, how I can help you.”
“Well ...” Agnes seemed nonplussed by Connie’s words and her expression became mollified.
“I decided that the best thing, if you agree, is to make Miss Fairchild’s house over to you as an outright gift. I was going to sell it but I would like, instead, to give it to you. It is a nice house, a large house, and I think you will be comfortable there. You will be near friends and family, people who will help you over this difficult patch. I would also like to offer you an income, the sum to be determined by your needs, and that we can leave to lawyers. There!”
She stopped and looked expectantly at her sister. If she had anticipated a torrent of gratitude she was, of course, disappointed. Instead of expressing joy or relief, Agnes’s eyes grew even more calculating. “Well, that’s very nice of you Constance, even generous, but,” she pulled a face, “Miss Fairchild’s house? Really I don’t much care for it. And you know I have never liked Wenham.” She grew gradually more agitated and moved closer to the edge of her chair. “Now what I would really like is the house in Chesterfield Street. That and an adequate income, plus the company of my London friends, is something that really would please me. Now that I really would be grateful for.”
So happy and expectant did she look that Connie hated to disillusion her; but she had spent the hours since her arrival in Wenham closeted with Eliza and Carson about the plan to help Agnes. It was Carson who had predicted she would want the London house. The fact was that he had already given instructions for its sale. More to the point, he was worried about what Agnes would get up to in London, relentlessly running up debts she would call upon him or Connie to settle. There would be no end to it.
“Much as we would rather she were elsewhere,” he had said, “Aunt Agnes must remain in Wenham where we can all keep our eyes on her.”
His words now echoed in Connie’s mind and she shook her head.
“I’m afraid the London house is in the process of being sold, Agnes ...”
“What, when?” Agnes looked outraged.
“Carson has it in hand.”
“He never told me.”
“Well, he told me.”
“Oh, I see. You have discussed all this, have you?” A look of understanding now dawned. “I see. This is a family plot. I might have known.”
The blood began to drum in Connie’s head and she wished for a moment she had stayed in Venice and resisted this philanthropic urge to do something for her ungrateful sister.
“It is not a plot. It is my offer.” By now Connie was trying hard to maintain her composure. “Take it or leave it, Agnes. I have already had several people interested in Victoria’s house. I am not here for very long, and I assure you my offer will not remain open indefinitely and will not be repeated.”
“I see you have discussed all this with Carson.” There was a spiteful note in Agnes’s voice. “I suspected as much, but I must warn you, my girl, once again, that if you set your hat at him you will be very badly let down, just as I was let down by Owen Wentworth. If you’re foolish enough to marry him Carson will fritter away all of your money and spend his time dallying with common country women. I tell you, the Woodville men never change.”
The blood went on drumming in her ears but Connie swallowed hard, saying nothing.
“Very well, I accept,” Agnes said with a toss of her head, having failed to goad her sister, with not a trace of gratitude in her voice. “I will accept the house and an income but,” she paused and shook her finger at Connie, “it had better be generous. I am a woman used to a certain standard of living, you know, and I expect to be able to sustain this. There will be a car, a butler and a maid. You can’t fob me off with any old thing. Don’t forget I was married to a Woodville and I have standards to consider, a way of life to which I have become accustomed and which as my sister, my younger sister, it is your duty to provide and maintain. Oh and incidentally,” she said, almost as an afterthought, “I shall wish to be known in future by my former title of Lady Woodville. It must be for me as though Owen Wentworth, may his soul rot in hell, never existed.”
Chapter Ten
Dora was a mystery to all who knew her, including her mother. She had always been a very self-contained person even as a child, fond of her own company, passionately devoted to animals, especially horses. Her parents had been exceptionally happily married and the first great tragedy in her life had been the death of her father, Ryder, when she was eleven. The second had been the suicide of her brother, Laurence, in 1912.
Dora was the middle child, two years younger than Laurence and a year older than Hugh. Surrounded by boys she enjoyed boyish pastimes, liked games and horse riding. Yet she had never shown any romantic interest in the opposite sex and her mother had always been convinced that Dora would never marry.
Dora had joined the VAD nursing service at the outbreak of war. VAD nurses were untrained and unpaid, acting as auxiliaries to the professional medical staff. Dora nursed first in London, then the West Country then, in 1916, she was sent to France and her medical unit was never far from the front line.
After the deaths of her father and brother this was the third most seminal influence of her life. She realised that, up to the time of the war, she had been a very spoilt, aloof, self-indulgent young woman who had never had even to contemplate work due to her mother’s second marriage to a wealthy man. She had been free to do as she liked, and that was mainly indulging from morning until night, seven days a week, in anything to do with riding and field sports. She had hunted two or three days a week, competed in gymkhanas and become one of the best known and most prominent of women horse riders in the county.
In France Dora’s superior was a woman younger than she was, who had trained as a nurse, called May Carpenter. May was small, almost tiny compared to Dora, with a heart-shaped face and bubbly dark curls. Though a working-class girl from the industrial north, she also had an air of fragility that was belied by the demanding and strenuous nature of her work. She worked in the theatre assisting the front line surgeons in appalling operations, and was never known to falter, flinch or complain however long the hours she was on duty.
Dora fell in love with May, but she did not regard it as sexual love. She was certainly attracted by her but, more importantly, she admired her more than anyone she had ever known, even her father and mother, even Carson, to whom she was close, or her beloved Laurence.
To see tough, doughty little May, only five feet four inches tall, lifting bulky soldiers, going through the most searing operations with calm, serenity and good humour did more to bring Dora through her own hard and, at times, heart-breaking work than anything else.
A strong bond grew between the women which deepened when Dora knew more of May’s circumstances. She was illegitimate and had grown up in an orphanage. At the age of fourteen she had been put into domestic service, and it was a tribute to her determination and strength of personality that she had educated herself to a sufficient standard to train at Guy’s hospital in London as a nurse.
After the war Dora brought May home to recuperate because they were both in as much need of it as any fighting man. It had been May’s intention to return to nursing, but at Dora’s behest she gave it up and in the years since the war had ended the two women had become inseparable, even though May did not ride and Dora did not paint or sew as exquisitely as May.
Then May had met Bernard Williams, a local farmer, at a meet, and he had started to court her. Within a very short time they were engaged, and Dora’s happy, peaceful world was destroyed.
She felt bitter and became estranged from May. Someone with whom she had thought she would happily spend her life, was consigned to outer darkness.
Carson cared a great deal about the cousin who was three years his senior. Dora was an unusual woman, and he not only loved and admired her, in a way he envied her. She was so sure, so single-minded, so unconcerned about what people thought of her relationship with the working-class woman she had brought home as a companion.
Like Dora he was surprised, but perhaps not as shocked, when May was courted by Bernard Williams, and soon afterwards married him. Without understanding much about the relationship, except that it was an unusually close one, he was also very sorry for his cousin. He knew how much it upset Dora to lose someone to whom she was so attached, particularly when she regarded May’s much older husband as a rather uncouth, unfeeling man with whom May had little in common besides a desire to be married.
Carson now stood at the top of the steps of the main portico of Pelham’s Oak anxiously watching the road below. He kept glancing at his watch and then going back into the house to check the time with the hall clock, coming out again and scanning the narrow road that snaked through fields and past copses, alongside small streams and part of the River Wen, and was usually pretty deserted except on market day. Then it sprouted solitary horsemen, horse-drawn carts and wagons, flocks of cattle or sheep being driven to market and, increasingly these days, automobiles taking farmers and their families to inspect the wares of the market stalls of Wenham or Blandford. There they would meet and gossip with their friends and load up with provisions to take to their sometimes isolated farms and dwellings often miles away from the nearest neighbour. Market day was a great day out.
Suddenly Carson spied a small Ford car being driven at a brisk pace along the road until it turned in through the imposing gates of Pelham’s Oak and continued up the drive towards the house. As it came to a stop Carson ran down the steps and stuck his head through the window by the driver’s seat to be greeted by Dora.
“Sorry I’m late, Carson.”
“I thought you’d forgotten.” He continued to peer in through the window, and his face fell. “Where’s Connie?”
“Oh, sorry, she couldn’t come. She sent her apologies.” Carson opened the door for Dora to alight and stepped back, shaking his head. “She’s avoiding me.”
Dora said nothing but got out and Carson closed the door behind her. She wore jodhpurs and a hacking jacket, a yellow cravat tucked into an open-necked shirt. She was a tall, striking looking woman, with ash-blonde hair which she wore cut fashionably short at the back and long at the sides. She had a narrow, aristocratic nose, a firm, stubborn mouth and a pair of disconcertingly direct and honest blue eyes.
Not many people were comfortable with Dora, but Carson was. He felt they were two of a kind. He took her arm as they walked round the side of the house towards the stables and looked up at the threatening sky.
“Maybe we should go riding straight away?”
“Suits me,” Dora agreed. “I don’t want to be too late home because of the dark. Mother still worries about me, even though I’m nearly forty.”
“Thirty-seven,” Carson corrected her.
“Nearer forty than thirty,” Dora persisted.
Carson stopped and looked at her.
“Do you have plans Dora?”
“Plans?” She looked surprised. “What kind of plans?”
“About the future? Now that May, well ...” his voice trailed off. May was so seldom mentioned these days.
“I’m perfectly happy as I am,” Dora said coldly. “May has nothing to do with it.”
“I thought you were going to buy a house together?”
“Can we change the subject, Carson?” They had reached the stables and Dora looked appraisingly up at her horse which the groom had prepared for her and stood saddled and waiting. She patted the patient mare affectionately. “The future’s not something I particularly want to discuss. Mother is quite happy having me at home.”
“I’m sure.”
“And what is your future may I ask?”
“Ah!” Carson sighed and began to mount Pulver who quivered expectantly. “We have all been changed by the war, Dora. We are all, in a way, wounded beings, different from what we were before. In a way we don’t belong. Be honest.” As Pulver trotted obediently into the yard Carson looked behind at Dora who was following him. “She is avoiding me, isn’t she? Every time I visit you she is not there, and when I ask you here she doesn’t come.”
“She is very busy with the house and Aunt Agnes. She’s an awful pain, that woman.”
“Well, we knew that. But Connie also knew that when she offered her the house.”
“She practically wants the place rebuilt. Connie has her job cut out to resist her at every turn. I think maybe she rather regrets offering it to her. The alternative, of course, would have been very difficult for you. Aunt Agnes would have stayed on here, so for that much you can be grateful to Connie.”
“I am grateful to Connie.”
Dora passed him as if she was anxious to avoid a discussion of personal matters and walked the horse across the paddock next to the house. It was a cold day, the ground hard beneath their feet, and once out by the paddock they set off at a brisk trot, relishing the freedom and companionship as they cantered down the steepish slope that led from the house by way of Crook’s farm and across the fields towards the cottage where Dora’s father and mother had first declared their love in the year that Carson’s parents had married, 1880, forty years before.
Clear of the cottage they began to race, their cheeks red, their hair flying in the wind as the hooves of the horses pounded the earth.
Breathless, they drew up about five miles away from the house which was now but a speck in the distance. Dora was visibly more relaxed, laughing. The pallor that had struck Carson on her arrival gone from her face.
“Oh this is good,” she cried patting her horse, Molly. “I think I’ll have Molly from you.”
“Take her as a gift.” Carson pointed to the horse with his crop. “She’s yours.”
“No, no, I’ll pay you for her.”
“No you won’t.” Carson drew nearer to Dora and, when the flanks of their horses were almost touching, leaned over to her. “Tell me, don’t avoid the question Dora. We have always been so close and honest with each other. Why does Connie avoid me?”
Dora averted her eyes and looked out over towards the town. “I don’t know.”
“You do know. She confides in you. I thought she was attracted to me. I was so excited when she came back so soon, and I’ve hardly seen her. She avoids me and sends excuses.”
Dora gazed down at the horse’s neck for a few seconds, as if deep in thought, then she raised her head and met Carson’s eyes.
“You’re right. We have always been open and honest with each other. Well, then I’ll tell you. Agnes has warned Connie off you. She said you were a womaniser and also that any overtures would be just for her money, because you are dreadfully hard up and needed money for the house. Agnes said hist
ory would be repeating itself all over again.”
“Damn Agnes,” Carson burst out bringing his fist hard down on his saddle. “You know it’s not true.” He turned his horse towards Wenham. “I shall go this very moment and have it out with her.”
Dora leaned over and seized Pulver’s bridle. “Don’t be so silly.”
“But you know it’s not true. I’ll not touch a penny of her damned money ...”
“I think that doesn’t trouble Connie so much, because her money means so little to her. It is the other thing and that is true isn’t it Carson?”
“No it is not. You know it is not Dora.”
“I always heard ...”
“Oh yes you ‘always heard’, but that was years ago.”
“Does a leopard change its spots?”
“Yes it does. In my case it does. You know that, Dora, and you are as close to me as anyone. I have not touched a woman since I came back from the war. I have wanted only Connie and ... well, another woman, but she wouldn’t have me either.” He had kept even from Dora the fact that he had loved Roger’s wife.
“For all the change in her, her apparent sophistication, Connie is a very simple woman, Carson. She is very vulnerable.”
“I know it and that’s why I haven’t pressed her. I also didn’t want her to think I am interested only in her money and, believe me, I am not.”
“Mother, for all her love and affection for you, also considers it a little strange ...”
“What is strange?” He looked at her aggressively.
“That you should now take such an interest in Connie.”
“I thought Aunt Eliza was my friend?”
In This Quiet Earth (Part Three of The People of this Parish Saga) Page 16